His Pile of Good Things
by Metarie
Summary: Eleven tells Amy about Rose.


Disclaimer: Not mine.  
A/N: I'm on a roll! Please to be letting me know what you think. :)

* * *

"Doctor, I have a question," Amy announces one day, fiddling with some non-essential bells and whistles on the TARDIS console as the Doctor fiddles with some apparently vital bits of wire under the TARDIS console. The buzz of the sonic screwdriver fills the room. "How many different girls have you traveled with like this?"

"Sorry, Amy, what was that?" He pokes his head up and looks through the floor at her. "The sonic makes an awful lot of noise, you'll have to speak up."

"I asked whether you'd traveled with lots of girls like this," she says, louder. "Or if I'm just special."

The Doctor goes back to whatever he was doing with an air of _I don't want to talk about it_. "Everyone I travel with is special, Amy, you should know that by now."

"I'm only asking because I stumbled across a particularly girly bedroom earlier and I wondered who it belonged to." The sonicking stops again, but Amy doesn't. "Or do you have a penchant for ladies clothing you haven't told me about?"

Amy watches as the Doctor climbs noisily out from under the console and walks over to her, invading her personal space in a big way. "You didn't go in, did you?" he asks, sternly, and maybe a little angrily.

"Look, I don't care if you like wearing pink sweaters from time to time," Amy says, amused. "Trust me, I've seen weirder. And it wouldn't even be the weirdest thing about you."

"They aren't my pink sweaters. They're my friend's."

Amy laughs. "Right," she says. "'Friend.'" She puts air quotes around the word. "Is this _friend_named 'Doctor'?"

"Her name was Rose," he says, and he walks away, busying himself with the monitor.

"Oh," says Amy, a little surprised to have gotten a straightforward answer. "Well, is she coming back? Seems like she left an awful lot behind."

"No, she isn't coming back," snaps the Doctor. "Don't go in her room again."

With that, he turns and leaves the console room, leaving a stunned Amy in his wake.

* * *

Later, Amy finds him in the library.

"I'm sorry," she says, quietly. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Not your fault, you couldn't have known." He doesn't look up from the encyclopedic tome he's holding, but Amy can tell he isn't reading it.

"Did she die?"

He looks at her then, but he just sighs. He closes the dusty old book and replaces it on the shelf before he says anything. "No. She left."

"Were you two..." Amy waves her hand in a motion meant to indicate _togetherness_. "A couple? Did she dump you?"

"It's never quite that simple, Amy, not when it's me. Being a Time Lord has a way of complicating everything."

He looks so sad and distant that Amy almost doesn't want to do the thing she planned to do next, but her curiosity overtakes her. She pulls a picture frame out from the inside of her jacket and shows it to him, cautiously. "Doctor," she says. "Is this her?"

The picture is of two insufferably happy people at a carnival of some kind, one a girl with shoulder length blonde hair and the other a skinny man with messy hair and a brown coat. They're both eating cotton candy and seem, to Amy's eyes, very much in love with one another.

"I'm... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have – " Amy says, as he gently takes it from her. "I found it on the desk in that room, I just thought – "

"It's her," he says, his expression unreadable.

Amy swallows. "Who's that with her?"

"Me," he says, and he laughs a little. "Look at that."

"What?" Amy grabs it back in confusion. "That's not you, that's a totally different man!"

"I know," he says. "But it's still me." He wanders away, taking out his sonic and flipping it up in the air.

"I don't understand," says Amy.

"It's all right. I'll explain it one of these days..." he trails off, then spins around and makes a beeline for the door. "Better get back to the consoles. Those circuits aren't going to tinker with themselves."

"What should I do with the picture?" Amy calls after him.

"Whatever you see fit," is the answer, and he disappears down the corridor.

* * *

The next time the Doctor's in the TARDIS kitchen it's because he's craving ice cream. Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream. Sweet, delicious, melty dairy chocolate chip or strawberry or vanilla bean or - ooh, Rocky Road! There's absolutely some Rocky Road in there, he remembers distinctly - he goes to open the freezer door to begin rummaging, but he pulls up short when he sees the picture of the blonde girl and the man with messy hair smiling back at him.

At first he doesn't know how to react, but then he smiles.

_Bless you, Amy Pond,_ he thinks.

Rocky Road has never tasted so delicious.


End file.
